The Portland daily press., 1887-08-25
the REGULAR ARMY, OF
PortIand's Youth Much Too Busy to
Enlist for Five Years.
Life in a Blue Coat with Brass But
tons and White Stripes.

charge, DO you suppose / would be tall
enough to join the army
Sergeant, take his name and age, and
measure him" was the order.
In amoment the sergeant returned with the
information that he was five feet two and a
half inches in his boots.
Won't do" were the words that sent the
young man down the stairs with a detected
look and much inward disgust, undoubtedly,
that nature had net done better by him.
do you have much trouble in getting
suitable men for the army?" asked the
PRESS reporter of Lieut.. Cusick, the officer
in command.
IA great deal' was his reply. "You see
we have to depend on class of men who are
out of work. and have desire enough to see
the Western country or for military life to
impel them to enlist. There are not many
men out of work in Portland In fact there
are fewer idle men here than in any other
city was ever in. Everyone seems to have
enough to do. There is plenty of business
and good pay. Besides being shipping
port Portland is growing. if you did but re-
alize it. Then they are building big rail-
road through the northern part of the State.
The agents of those contractors have been
in all the cities and though the country
gathering up the SPARE men.
"Then what few men are out of employ
ment and want to go into Uncle Sans SER
vice are most of them not up TO the stand
ard. The United States Army wants ff-
teen hundred men at once to bring its
strength up to the twenty-five thousand re-
r,,fr Cd lNxtt l,o n
have had but twenty-o one applications in
Portland, and only three of them have been
acceptable. OF the other nineteen there
was one "out" or another that compelled us
to reject them. Fully two thirds OF them
had defective eyes. One eye was not so
good as the other. In the army man must
have good eyes that he may
become good markham, and
that he may be able to distinguish different
objects. One eye should be as good as the
other SO that in case of temporary injury to
an eye the efficiency Of the soldier may not
be impaired. Dissipated habits, too much
rum and tobacco, are common causes of these
weaknesses of the eyes. In many cases de-
fects Of vision have been produced by blows.
Then in chest measurements and weight
we find frequent reasons for rejecting appli-
cants, especially at this season of the year.
The hard work of summer reduces the
weight and the girth of the chest We have
| regular system of measurements, and it
will not do to depart from the standard in a
single particular. For the infantry service
we take none below 8 feet inches in height,
and none over feet inches. For the cav
airy feet inches to 5 feet 10 inches are the
limits. We don't have any tall cavalrymen
because they are liable to get too heavy.
Light, tough men are wanted for that SER
vice. Now for the shortest infantrymen, s
feet inches, we require that he shall have
weight OF 12S pounds, a chest measurement
OF "a inches, with the ability to expand his
chest inches by drawing in a full breath.
Then these requirements of weight and
chest measurement are higher for taller men.
A man 8 feet inches tall must weigh
al pounds at least, measure 343 around the
chest, and have chest expansion of 81
inches; for feet 10 inches the required min
lmuln is 155 pounds for weight, 351 inches
chest, and p expansion; for feet the weight
is 1863, the chest measurement 363, expansion
q. You see it does not necessarily follow
that a man must be an athlete to join the
army, as the tables to which the professors
! of physical culture train their pupils to have
standard of chest measurement somewhere
near 40 inches for man feet tall. But we
want good average, well built and healthy
men, without any defects physically. So far
we have secured three out of over twenty
| applicants. But l don't think this small
| proportion is any sign that the vigor of the
youth of Maine is departing. For many rea-
sons the men who apply are not fair samples.
Are the inducements offered by the SER
vice such as to attract the most ambitious
young men?" asked the reporter"
swell, you can judge for yourself The
soldier gets $13 month with his board and
| clothes. He enlists for five years, and must
| stay in the service until his term expires I'M
less he can get the Secretary of War to al
low his discharge. By good behavior he gets
an increase of one dollar month during the
third year of service, two dollars during the
fourth, and three dollars during the fifth. If
he is promoted he gets further additions to
his pay. He may become a corporal, ser
geant, quartermaster sergeant, a quarter
master, or commissary; he may even 90
higher, and by passing an examination be-
lore board OF officers get certified for an ex-
animation at Fort Monroe, Va. If he passes
at the fort he may then become a commits
stoned officer, starting as a second lieuten-
ant"
DO many avail themselves of the oppor-
tunity?"
The young men who graduate at West
Point have the first chance, and of late they
have filed all the vacant commissions Practi-
cally very few men rise in the army from the
ranks to commission. Adjutant General
| Drum, however, is one who did. | am not
graduate of West Point myself, but l
served as an officer of volunteers during the
| war. and was then transferred to the regu-
lar army as commissioned officer.
So had an opportunity better than
falls to the young man who enters the
| army now in any other way than through
| West Point. Yet there are seine promotions
even now. The commissions of the army
are also open to civilians, though this is not
generally known. After the West Point
graduates have got places, and the promo
tions from the rank of non-commissioned
officers have been made, any vacancies left
| there are rarely any, however,, are open to
civilians who can pass the examinations re-
CURED"
The young men who satisfy the require
ments of the recruiting office in Portland
are dressed in uniforms of the army and de-
spatched to David's Island. New York har-
Dor, where they are instructed for three
months. Then they are sent to the regiments,
generally to the far West Lieutenant
Cusick himself has served almost continu-
ously in the far West since the close of the
war. In 1915 he was with the troops that
upheld the Kellogg government in Louisi-
ana, but Immediately after he was ordered
west with the rest of his regiment,-the
Twenty. second Infantry. He served in the
campaigns against Sitting Bull and was in
Colorado at the time of the Ute upris-
ing, when Agent Meeker and Lieutenant
Thornburgh were killed. He is of the opin-
ion that the present uprising is of no great
Importance. Lieutenant Cusick has many
Indian implements collected during his long
experience on the frontier, and intends to
arrange them in the recruiting office SO as to
form small museum The spectacle of
tomahawks and scalping knives is not,